Today is National Eat Your Vegetables Day. Frankly I didn’t know there was such a day. And I don’t know why it exists. Or who invented it.
What exactly are we supposed to do on this holiday? Do we sing songs about carrots? Do we decorate an artichoke and exchange gifts? And if we DO exchange gifts, are we allowed to exchange tomatoes even though, technically, the tomato has always been classified as a fruit before it was legally reclassified as a ‘vegetable’ by U.S. Congress in 1893?
Speaking of which, is Congress really ALLOWED to do that? Reclassify stuff contrary to biological taxonomy? Like, for example, would our legislature be able to parade a horse before the U.S. House and say, “Gentlemen, I move that we reclassify this creature as a possum!”
And would the opposing side shout in response, “Objection! He spelled ‘possum’ wrong!”
“Everyone knows possum is spelled with an O!”
“Objection! You can’t say ‘possum’ anymore, you have to say ‘American marsupial!’”
“Bigot!”
“Off with his head!”
Either way, somewhere along the way we were given National Eat Your Vegetables Day. And it’s today. And I, for one, am excited about it.
Namely, because roughly 3 million deaths are caused each year simply by not eating enough fruits and vegetables. Which makes lack of dietary vegetables and fruits a leading cause of death. And when it comes to countries with the most annual deaths related to poppy diet—big surprise—America is a pioneer.
This was recently brought to my attention the first time I got home from visiting Europe. My wife and I had spent weeks in various countries, riding trains and spending time in public places. In every train station, airport, and café restaurant they had large baskets of apples, oranges, bananas, cherries, tomatoes, and various other fruits I’d never heard of. And the Europeans were snorking down fruits and veggies like they were made of gold.
Moreover, the whole Euro meal structure was slightly different than ours. I grew up in a home whose primary nutrition came from Hamburger Helper and Tab.
Whereas the meals in Europe were light, consisting mostly of fruits and veggies and yogurt and bread. Breakfast was mostly produce. Lunch, the main meal, was often served with two or three vegetable dishes. Dinner was basically a tiny snack eaten at 9:30 p.m., and was mostly veggies and a little meat.
But when our plane landed in Chicago and I tried to buy an orange in the airport café store, the young man behind the register looked at me blankly and said, “You mean, like, health food and stuff?”
Since when did oranges become health-and-fitness food? When I was a kid we ate oranges like they were manufactured by Russell Stover Industries. We fought over oranges. We pulled over on the side of the road to purchase oranges from fruit-and-vegetable stands. We got oranges for CHRISTMAS.
I walked all over the airport, searching for oranges. But all I could find was a Granny Smith old enough to qualify for Social Security.
Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not poormouthing the American diet. Believe me, there are a lot of beautiful things about our national nutritional habits. Coors is only one example.
What I am getting at, however, is that our ancestors ate differently than we do.
When I was a boy, I remember visiting my uncle and aunt, way out in the country. They chain-smoked miles of Chesterfields, sitting around a little kitchen table, listening to an AM radio. They were ancient, with pale hair, withered skin, and bent postures. They were in their mid-fifties.
But what I remember most were the suppers my aunt would make. They were mostly veggies from her Victory Garden. Field peas, purple hulls, zippers, turkey craws, summer squash, and cucumbers the size of Louisville Sluggers. Fresh homegrown tomatoes that had never been bleached, sterilized, waxed, and refrigerated. They were still warm, and when adults ate them, they often uttered religious names.
We ate okra bathed in snot. Stewed carrots with butter and sugar. Zucchini, onions, taters, and creamed spinach prepared with enough butter and cheese to clog a four-inch drainpipe. Pinto beans, navy beans, and red beans were food fit for company.
We ate fresh apples from the orchard across the road. Strawberries picked from the woods. We ate blueberries coming out the ascot, until you were almost sick of them. And for dessert, if you were lucky, you were given a Chilton County peach with fresh cream. When did all this become outdated nostalgia? When did we trade homegrown tomatoes and collards for Taco Bell and purple Mountain Dew?
According to the CDC, approximately 98 percent of American teenagers will go entire days, sometimes even weeks, without eating a single fruit or vegetable. That is, if you don’t count French fries. An average child eats 30 pounds of French fries per year, and 10 pounds of potato chips.
If you’re wondering, the daily recommended serving of fruits and veggies is the equivalent of two apples. That’s all. Two tiny apples. Yet, in many states, the percentage of American schoolkids who eat an adequate serving of daily produce falls below 1 percent.
And it gets worse. While most children did not eat a serving of daily vegetables or fruit today, an overwhelming majority DID consume sugary drinks. In fact, 70 percent of them. Meanwhile, one out of every three American children is overweight or obese. And if this dietary trend continues over the span of a child’s life, the kid has a 300 percent increased risk of mortality in early adulthood.
So how do we change things? How do we improve the lives of our kids? Well, I’m no expert, I am just some dipstick on the Internet.
But, a recent study found that if American school kids were to incorporate only two servings of vegetables per day—just two measly servings—they could lose around 10 to 15 pounds in one year.
I don’t know if that’s true. In fact, I don’t know anything. I do, however, know that you should eat your vegetables. And above all, I know that possum is spelled with an O.
Questions: SeanDietrich@gmail.co
Visit the Sean of the South Website
Find out where you can see Sean live.
Originally published on Sean’s website. Republished here with permission.
If you enjoyed this article, then please REPOST or SHARE with others; encourage them to follow AFNN. If you’d like to become a citizen contributor for AFNN, contact us at managingeditor@afnn.us Help keep us ad-free by donating here.
Substack: American Free News Network Substack
Truth Social: @AFNN_USA
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/afnnusa
Telegram: https://t.me/joinchat/2_-GAzcXmIRjODNh
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AfnnUsa
GETTR: https://gettr.com/user/AFNN_USA
CloutHub: @AFNN_USA